Casey Newton is an optimistic girl with a passion for science. She is determined to change the world. One day, she receives a strange lapel pin that allows her to access Tomorrowland, a futuristic and wonderful space-time dimension. Determined to find this faraway place, she crosses paths with Frank Walker, a brilliant inventor who is disillusioned and knows well Tomorrowland. With his help, and with the help of the mysterious Athena, Newton will have to work hard to save the world from catastrophe…

Part of the disappointment of this futuristic adventure tagged ‘Disney’ (and the reason that someone has aptly defined the film as "a teen version of Interstellar") probably comes from the expectations generated by Brad Bird’s involvement in the film as director and writer. Bird was the creator of Pixar masterpieces, such as The Incredibles, and Ratatouille, (which, among other good things, contain hymns to the importance of individual excellence and to the ability of surpassing expectations in the name of passion) but also the successful Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol, which was Bird’s first exploration in the live action film genre.

It is the 1970s. Peter Quill is about to become an orphan. His mother takes her last breath, while there has never been any trace of his father. Peter leaves the hospital convinced of having to grow up on his own when a UFO scoops him up and takes him away.

Now we meet him again as a man in a faraway world. After having grown up on a ship of outlaws he has become a thief himself. This is precisely what catapults him into a story that is even more than he can handle: the precious sphere that he stole from his own companions is really an object of desire of evil villain, Ronan, who wants to destroy the universe. In order to escape, Quill must form an unlikely alliance with four absurd characters:…
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In April 1945, World War II seems to be coming to an end, yet for the crewmembers of an American tank, the horrors and dangers of war continue as they face their daily mission in German territory. Leading the mission is the fierce Sergeant Collier, who finds Ellison, a simple soldier on his first mission, a part of his crew.

The cruelty of war -- which is described emblematically through Sergeant Wardaddy Collier's words, "Ideals are peaceful; history is violent" -- is seen through the eyes of a greenhorn. Although this is nothing new, Ayer (who also made Training Day and the first Fast & Furious) tells the story in the restricted space of the passenger compartment of an army tank, which will become home, fort, and, perhaps, tomb to five men.

Twenty years after the tragedy that forced it to close, the dinosaur park has now reopened. It is more spectacular and ambitious than ever before, thanks to the investment of a rich Indian man who, on paper, wants to give everyone the possibility of becoming aware of the smallness of man compared to nature. Yet, in reality, he hides a less worthy deal with the army to use the park “monsters” for military purposes.

As expected, precisely when the manager of the park (Claire)’s nephews visit, the new attraction— a genetically modified dinosaur— escapes, scattering death across the island. The only one capable of stopping the killer dinosaur is Owen, a former marine in charge of training a team of vicious velociraptors—a dangerous weapon that will come in handy in the…
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A tracking shot of a gazelle running across the northern Mali desert. Shattering gunshots. A van of men is chasing the beast, concerned not to kill, but to exhaust and capture it. More gunshots: traditional wooden statues are blown to bits in the sand.

These armed marauders are jihadists arriving from Libya and other countries into Azawad, the region of Mali in which Abderrahmane Sissako’s new film Timbuktu is located. They don’t speak the local languages (particularly Tamasheq, a Tuareg dialect) and so use translators and a mixture of Arabic, Bambara, French and English in order to ensure that women wear gloves and socks, that men roll up their trouser legs, and to ban, inter alia, football, music, smoking, loitering in the streets and sitting on one’s doorstep. Woe betide anyone who breaks these arbitrarily-imposed laws; it’s lashes, stoning or a gunshot for them.

As the avengers battle the last troops still loyal to Hydra, they discover a new artificial intelligence. Out of fear for the destiny of the world, Tony Stark decides to use it as part of his global defense program. But when things do not go as planned, the avengers find themselves face to face with a new terrible threat, which would have never occurred had they not yielded to their own fears. New and unpredictable allies join them, but the real danger comes from within…

While in the first Avengers movie, Nick Fury assembled his team of superheroes due to an alien threat, this time the avengers’ own fears are responsible for their new challenge. The mysterious Wanda Maximoff (a new entry alongside her twin…
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Penguins of Madagascar****Directed by Eric Darnell and Simon J. SmithWritten by John Aboud, Michael Colton and Brandon Sawyer

Tired of being part of the circus (see Madagascar 3), the famous penguins Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private decide to break into Fort Knox. Here they will be kidnapped by evil Octavius Brine, a genetically modified octopus whose mind is set in turning every penguin in the world into monsters.

The ever-close team of penguins is looking for new adventures. Initially our four heroes did not want anything more than a rare snake from a vending machine in Fort Knox. Yet if they now want to survive, they have to defeat Dr Octavius Brine, also known as Dave.

Sweet and kind Ella lives a happy childhood until her mother, the very person who taught her the value of kindness, dies. A little after her death, Ella’s merchant father marries a widow with two daughters, Anastasia and Drisella, who reveal themselves to be the polar opposite of Ella’s good character. When he also passes away, her stepmother and sisters take control of the house and turn Ella into a servant. Her name is cruelly morphed into Cinderella. One day in the woods Ella/Cinderella meets prince Kit, who is being pressured to choose a bride. Thanks to her fairy godmother’s magic, Ella goes to the ball and wins the prince’s heart. Love conquers all.

The zombie invasion is here. Our bookshops, cinemas and TVs are dripping with the pustulating debris of their relentless shuffle to cultural domination.

A search for “zombie fiction” on Amazon currently provides you with more than 25,000 options. Barely a week goes by without another onslaught from the living dead on our screens. We’ve just seen the return of one of the most successful of these, The Walking Dead, starring Andrew Lincoln as small-town sheriff, Rick Grimes. The show follows the adventures of Rick and fellow survivors as they kill lots of zombies and increasingly, other survivors, as they desperately seek safety.

Generational monsters

Since at least the late 19th century each generation has created fictional enemies that reflect a broader unease with cultural or scientific developments. The “Yellow Peril” villains such as Fu Manchu were a response to the massive increase in Chinese migration to…
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Featuring a heart-breaking central performance from Julianne Moore as Alice Howland, a Columbia University Linguistics professor diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s, Still Alice shows us the painful reality of a disease we’d really rather not think about, a disease that frightens us, that we don’t understand and are terrified of experiencing first hand.

Based on Lisa Genova’s 2007 bestselling novel of the same name, the film tracks Alice’s diagnosis after the first effects of the disease cause her to forget the words to a speech she gives at her University. The film is an intimate portrayal of the devastating impact the disease has on Alice’s husband (Baldwin) and their children – also at risk due to the hereditary nature of the condition - as they struggle to come to terms with the fact that, in spite…
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